


The Caledonian Mafia

by InsertImaginativeNameHere



Category: In the Loop (2009) & The Thick of It, The Thick of It (TV)
Genre: Gen, Post-Goolding Inquiry, Swearing, The Caledonian Mafia - Freeform, prank calling
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-07-09
Updated: 2015-07-09
Packaged: 2018-04-08 13:02:34
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,503
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4306116
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/InsertImaginativeNameHere/pseuds/InsertImaginativeNameHere
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>After the Goolding Inquiry turns sour, Malcolm calls in a favour and asks the party to hire Jamie, who goes to his former boss to find out why. In the end, they decide to take revenge on Ollie Reeder and make his life a living hell, just like he did Malcolm's.</p>
            </blockquote>





	The Caledonian Mafia

**Author's Note:**

> This is a fanfic of the Thick of It, told primarily from third person omniscient occupying Jamie's consciousness...so as you can imagine it's not exactly CLEAN. Jamie has a dirty mind and so *ahem* FUCKING LANGUAGE WARNINGS and a lot of political incorrectness, some which even I'd be offended by (I'm Welsh, being called a Sheepshagger really gets under my skin but for this fic, I included it because come on, this is JAMIE we're talking about). Apologies if any offence is caused, and I hope you enjoy this fic.

 

Fuck it all. Absolutely all of it. The worst part wasn’t the media bandwagon, everyone Malc had ever wronged jumping in to have their say, it was the way everyone laughed and laughed and laughed, like this was a fucking good thing? Was that what they thought? This was the end of politics for a start. After this, it was going to be as fucking boring as everyone below forty five already thought it was, Jamie included.

 

He’d never been one for the actual politics. No, he’d just liked having a job where he could bollock people for a living, egged on by Malcolm Tucker, who’d aim him at people he didn’t like and together they had caused ministerial PTSD to be as common as the sniffles. Things had changed, hadn’t they, the Nutters had swooped in and marked their territory, pissing all over Malc and claiming him as their own, and the cunt hadn’t even fought back, no, he’d practically handed himself to them on a platter. Nobody would hire Jamie after that, after he’d gone feral and they’d found not even Malcolm could keep him under control. He’d hopped from job to job like some twat with hiccups on a space hopper; he’d tried his best but nothing could top those days, when he and Malc had been the Caledonian Mafia and essentially ruled the country.

 

And now this. The fucking Goolding Inquiry stabbing the knife deep into Malcolm’s back, the papers taking a massive shit all over his name and laughing about it, laughing incessantly. They were so desperate to pad out their stories, they’d even called Jamie, and hadn’t that been just delightful, because the fucking Daily fucking Mail was calling him and Malcolm, Malcolm fucking Tucker wasn’t? Sod that.

 

Instead, there was a phone call from some bitch in opposition offering James McDonald a job.

 

“Are you having a laugh?” he’d asked “Are you having a fucking laugh?”

 

An uncomfortable cough. “Well, um, no actually. It was suggested to us we might need someone with the presence to cause MPs to...to shit themselves.” the stuck-up Poxbridge bint sounded uncomfortable swearing, stupid cow. “With He-Who-Shall-Not-Be-Named out of the way, we were wondering whether you wanted to be our guy. Well?”

 

Fuck. This couldn’t be happening. Nobody liked Jamie. He’d made sure of that with his psychotic, murderous rants and daily threats of grievous bodily harm, he’d _enjoyed_ every fucking minute of that shitestorm up until the end. Why would they want someone as fucking mental as him? Even Malc had enjoyed a comfortable grip on sanity, a cold, calculating kind of sanity that allowed him to play everyone off against one another and left everyone thinking he was a loony, when truth be told, there was nobody saner than Malcolm Tucker. He was frighteningly sane. People just thought he was off his head because that’s what he wanted them to think, it had always worked wonders for his reputation in the past, except now. Now that reputation was stringing him up by his bollocks and killing him ninety times over, then once more for luck. Point was, without Malcolm, Jamie was, and he was well aware everyone knew this, a loose cannon. A risk.

 

Besides, there was one other thing. “I, I really don’t think, you know, that that’d be a good idea. I mean, I’m not Malcolm Tucker. Me, I’m just the attack dog, any cunt with half a brain knows that. Malc’s the fucking mastermind. You don’t want to hire me.”

 

“Do you want the job?” the woman offered, unphased by Jamie’s words.

 

“Why me?”

 

The woman sighed. “He said we weren’t to tell you. Look, this party owes Malcolm a lot, despite all the shit with Goolding now. He called us asking for one favour before he went down, and that was hiring you. Said he needed to apologise.”

 

Shit. That didn’t sound like Malcolm Tucker. That sounded like some sentimental bastard, a robotic replacement or some fucking alien worm controlling his brain, the latter two being considerably more likely. Jamie didn’t want to think about the first option. His friendship - if it could be called that - with Malcolm had never been touchy-feely, huggy-kissy, more bitey-bitey, Jamie-killy, a happy-go-lucky stream of insults, nothing deep and meaningful to it. Jamie didn’t have friends, he was too good at pissing other people off for that, and Malcolm _couldn’t_ have that luxury thanks to his position as Dark Lord of Westminster, the uncrowned king, no,  emperor  of spin. Really it had been perfect the way it was, the understanding that passed between them, no _friendship_ as such, just tag-team bollocking and fun times like that. If Malc was going soft, what with the trial coming up...Jamie didn’t even want to think about it.

 

He accepted the job though.

 

Wouldn’t he always? He’d accepted the job when Malc had first offered it to him, and he’d accept whatever that arsehole wanted of him, this last will and testament of a dying spin doctor. He’d accepted the job, and now he was driving to a place he’d only ever visited once; after his divorce when he had nowhere else to go, Malcolm had let him stay on the sofa for a night until they sorted something else out. This was probably a bad idea. Even utterly fucked and on his descent into hell, Malcolm was still, well, still Malcolm. Cunning, ruthless, terrifyingly intelligent...Jamie used to think he understood Malc, that they were on the same wavelength (that being Bollocking FM), but he’d been wrong. There was always an unknown quality with Malcolm, he always knew more than you did; he might have been a political velociraptor, but you got the sense there was more to him than those fantastic rants alone. That he had what nobody else in proximity had - an IQ higher than his shoe size. Jamie couldn’t live up to that, and didn’t Malcolm know it? Apology? Ha fucking ha. Like that was going to happen. He’d show Malc. He could stand on his own two feet without having someone holding his leash.

 

Pulling up outside the house, pretty certain he saw a photographer duck behind a hedge at the sight of him, and giving said fucker a two-fingered salute in the more visceral sense of the phrase, Jamie approached the lair of the beast, taking a deep breath before plunging headlong in and knocking on the door.

 

No answer.

 

Of course not.

 

“‘ey, Malc, it’s me,” Jamie shouted into the letterbox “You gonna let me in?”

 

“Oh fuck off!” he heard the familiar muffled greeting come from somewhere inside, and waited patiently as he heard the footsteps approach and his former boss open the door. At first he smiled, then his eyes fixed upon Malcolm’s pale, drawn face, exhaustion evident on it. He was wearing a fleece and jeans, which didn’t look right after only ever seeing him at work for years, _years_. It was the exhaustion though, the weary look in his watery blue eyes that told Jamie McDonald nothing was okay.

 

“Jesus, Malc, you look fucking undead, makin’ me want to put a stake through your heart. You okay?”

 

Malcolm shrugged, stepped aside and let the blue-eyed psychopath in, closing the door and flipping one off to the photographer, ducking back into the hedges. “They told you didn’t they?” Jamie nodded solemnly. “Christ on a fucking mobility scooter, can nobody keep their gob shut around here?”

 

“Nah, they were too busy giving Lord fucking Goolding an under-the-table blowjob,” Jamie replied, miming out the very visual process. When Malcolm smiled, just for the fraction of a second, he felt proud, like he’d done his job. In a sense, that had always been his job. Malcolm had essentially hired him for the comic relief. Something to keep himself sane in the fucked up world he inhabited.

 

“So did you take it?”

 

“Yeah, but see, I’m confused. Why’d you do it?” Jamie narrowed his eyebrows. His former boss chuckled. “I’m serious, Malc. This is no time to be getting sentifuckingmental. You’re in deep shit, but you know that already.”

 

“I know that, you know that, every cunt in Westminster knows that,” Malc shrugged. “Honestly though, this isn’t about what happened with Tom.”

 

“Fuck Tom. He did this to you, Malc. You’d never have ended up here if they hadn’t cut your balls off first.”

 

There it was, the bollocking face, the face that sent a rush of adrenaline through Jamie before he remembered it was directed at him this time and that probably wasn’t good. He prepared himself for a shouting match that never came. Instead, Malcolm pushed him up into the wall and said in that slow, sinister voice he reserved for the worst of the worst.

 

“Don’t you fucking dare, son. You want to know why I gave you this job?” Jamie nodded cautiously, and Malcolm smiled his shark-toothed grin. “Because I need someone inside to take down Ollie fucking Reeder. He’s fucking terrified of you. And without me around, he’ll be shitting himself in the most literal sense. We -” Malcolm stepped back, letting Jamie relax. “We need to fucking crucify the cunt. Crucify him on an industrial fan spinning round and round blood spraying all over the ceiling until it looks like a fucking Jackson fucking _Bollock_ painting.” as he said this, his hands moved all over the place, acting the whole thing out, much to Jamie’s delight.

 

“I like that one. Can I borrow it?” Malcolm shrugged, as if to say ‘why not?’, and Jamie laughed “Ollie fucking Reeder. ‘s he the Poxbridge twat who looks like Frodo with glasses?”

 

“That’s the one.”

 

“What did he do, aside from, you know, using up all the oxygen poor starving orphans in Africa would have died for?”

 

Malcolm’s face went back to that tired look he’d had when Jamie had first arrived. “He told them where I’d be when I handed myself in.”

 

“He never!” Malc nodded. “Fucking piece of fucking whale semen! If he was here now, I’d rip off both his arms, shove one of them so far up his arse it reaches out his cockstained mouth, and use the other to fucking rape a baby seal. You know sea otters have been known to rape baby seals to death? Saw it on a documentary once. ‘s well known scientific fact.”

 

“That’s absolutely fucking fascinating.”

 

“I know. ‘m proud of that one. Hey,” a bright idea popped into Jamie’s head all of a sudden. “I’ve got Ollie’s number. Been using it to send him unsolicited links to hardcore porn for about a year now. You know what we should do?”

 

“Are you suggesting,” Malcolm began “What I think you’re suggesting?”

 

“Yeah. Give him a ring, threaten him with death at the hands of the Caledonian Mafia, then when I go into work he’ll be so fucking petrified he’ll shit out his appendix.”

 

A predatory grin crept onto Malcolm’s face as he nodded appreciatively. “I like it. Pass me the phone.”

 

“Hey, he’ll recognise you.” Jamie pulled the phone to his chest

 

“And he won’t know it’s you? At least I did fucking drama O-Level, fucking Shakespeare and all that highbrow bollocks. I know how to do fucking accents, you just sound exactly the fucking same however you try to talk. I take the call.”

 

“I didn’t know you did drama, Malc. I thought you were just a nat’ral inbred liar.”

 

“Aren’t we all, Jamie, aren’t we all? Now pass me the fucking phone would you, you short-arsed cunt.” Reluctantly, Jamie relented, recalling a time you never, never let Malcolm anywhere near your phone because if you did he’d be able to blackmail you and your entire extended family, and/or hunt them down and kill them. Still, he watched him closely as he searched through the contacts scrolling past  ‘BNP’s Whoreface Bride’ and ‘Crossdressing Sheepshagger’ until he reached ‘F’ for ‘Fat Pat’s Left Arsecheek’, ‘Fatty’s Mantits’ and finally, ‘Fucking the Enemy’, at which point he raised his eyebrows. Jamie beamed proudly. After all these years, this was what he remembered Ollie Reeder as being; a treacherous bastard who slept with a posh bitch for power.

 

“Go on then, what are you waiting for?” Jamie nudged his ex-boss, who shook the hand off his shoulder and glared at him. “Sorry Malc.”

 

A moment’s silence. Then he pressed call, making sure the phone was on speaker so Jamie could listen in. For a few tense moments, Jamie bit his fist with excitement as the ringing, ringing tone dominated, until that pompous Poxbridge voice picked up, furious and flustered.

 

“Look, whoever you are, if you could stop sending me porn-”

 

“You don’t get to make requests of us,” Malcolm’s voice had changed, his accent softer and lighter, the vowels drawn out into an Edinburgh lilt which sounded oh-so-sinister on _him_ and made Jamie wish he was recording it to humiliate him later. “Not after what you did to Malcolm Tucker.”

 

“W-who is this?” the colossal waste of skin stammered.

 

“Remember when you used to joke about us, never took us seriously? We’re the Caledonian Mafia, and you’ve got a black mark by your name. Do you know what that means?”

 

“That I get a stern talking to over the phone?” Ollie sounded terrified, his voice trembling uncertainly. Jamie had to bite his fist again to stop himself laughing.

 

“You fucking wish, mate. It means death. Not a nice, quick death, but a slow, public hanging as we make a noose out of your own intestines and string you up from St Paul’s Cathedral. We’ll be seeing you soon. Bye-bye!” Malcolm grinned and hung up.

 

“That was a bit...short wasn’t it?” Jamie was disappointed. When he’d suggested it, he’d imagined hurling a stream of obscenities down the line until Ollie fucking wank-for-brains Reeder was drowning in the sincere levels of shit. Not that quiet, calmly threatening whisper, the unfamiliar voice sounding ever-so-slightly unhinged.

 

“Didn’t want him to guess it was me. Not all intimidation is four letter words, you know, sometimes you have to go subtle.”

 

“Never been my strong point, has it, eh Malc?” Jamie laughed.

“You’re about as subtle as being hit in the face with a brick by Susan fucking Boyle,” Malcolm replied, handing Jamie his phone back. “When do you start work?”

 

“They wanted me to come in as soon as possible. Why, d’you want me to go in there now and bring Ollie’s balls back as a trophy for you to keep if you go down?”

 

“If you don’t mind. Ollie’ll be asking anyone who knows anything about that phone call. Oh look, he’s calling me-” Malcolm held up his spare phone. “How he got this number, I don’t know. I need you to go down there and unleash hell on him. Leave him alive - barely.”

 

“You know me Malc, I’m practic’ly Little Bo Peep, only I didn’t lose my sheep, I fucking killed them all with a sledgehammer. He won’t know what’s hit him.”

 

“Good.” Malcolm sighed, sitting down at last, after pacing the room repeatedly like a caged animal for the past ten minutes or so. “I’m sorry for shutting you out, Jamie. I could have done with you by my side these last few months. Caledonian Mafia, eh? We were good, you know, back in the day. Fucking brilliant. You go on down there now and massacre Ollie for me. ‘There _Will_ Be Blood’ _._ ”

 

Underneath the psycho front Jamie played up to, he recognised the severe emotional state his former boss - _friend?_ \- was in. Without power, Malc always got low. He liked to be in control of everything, a homicidal spider at the centre of a massive web. Only now he was cut off from all of that, floundering in the aftermath of the Inquiry, with his trial date marching ever closer. Everybody wanted to see him go down. Nobody was standing up for him, that was the thing, because nobody cared. He’d harassed and menaced and thrashed the media into a stunned awe and now their chance had come, they’d turned on him, vultures swooping in over the carcass of Malcolm Tucker, who shut himself off in his house and refused to answer any calls. Instead he paced the various rooms in a trance-like state, not sleeping, barely eating, that was what Jamie suspected anyway. Why did Malcolm have to be complicated? Couldn’t he take a more simplistic worldview, that of the man who believed only two films were necessary - ‘There Will Be Blood’ and ‘There Will Be Tits’? Why did he have to over-complicate life? Malcolm fucking Tucker.

 

“‘m sorry, Malc. This shouldn’t have happened to you. After everything you did, this is what takes you down, it’s not right. Mr fucking Tickle. Couldn’t he have died a bit quieter?”

 

Malcolm shrugged, saying nothing. It was always frightening when Malcolm went quiet. Jamie didn’t understand it himself. When he felt down, he watched some horror-gore films and they always made him feel much better, unless it was that fucking disappointment ‘There Will Be Hardly Any Fucking Blood’ (apparently this was an epic drama instead, whatever that fucking meant) which just made him want to fight someone, preferably whatever cunt titled that fucking movie.

 

“Well, I’ll see you at the trial, yeah?” Jamie tried to fill the silence. “You’re pleading ‘no' guilty’ right?”

 

This earned him a special ‘are you a fucking idiot?’ glare, which made him laugh. “Of course I am. I’ve still got some fucking dignity, haven’t I?”

 

Jamie nodded. “Have you considered calling Digni _tas_ _,_ it’d honestly be a mercy killing right now, the state you’re in? You’d better sort yourself out before the trial.”

 

Bollocking face. _Yes!_ He’d managed to rouse Malc out of his stupor and get the bollocking face back, again, for the second time that day. “Go fuck yourself up the arse with a long pointy stick, why don’t you?”

 

“I don’t know, maybe because I’ll be too busy crucifying Ollie Reeder?”

 

And Malcolm laughed, not a dark, demonic sounding chuckle, but a genuine laugh, the kind that was all too rare coming from him. Satisfied his work here was done, Jamie bid his _friend_ farewell, and made his way down to his new workplace, a shithole of an office building built way back in the 60s judging by the awful fucking architecture. He parked his car in an empty space and casually strolled in, basking in the nervous whispers and the scattering MPs ducking behind their own vehicles, hiding around corners, because _oh shit it’s him, Jamie, Tucker’s bulldog, he’ll tear your fucking eyeballs out._ And he would. He honestly would, without thought.

 

He was back.

 

They let him in immediately, unquestioning; apparently security had been warned. This might have been a sudden move for him, but they had considered it well, before actually calling him earlier that day. He’d texted ahead before leaving Malcolm’s, driving through traffic like a maniac to get in and bring on the righteous vengeance. Righteous vengeance was always his thing, first as an attempted priest, later as a Press Officer.

 

Now. Time to find a bespectacled Frodo look-a-like. Time to commit a murder most foul, so foul they’d have to think of a new category. Jamie’s heart started to beat faster, adrenaline pumping again. The only thing missing now was Malcolm, he noted, almost sadly, then perked up again as he stalked the corridors, treating backbenchers to mad, murderous grins that sent them scuttling out of sight. He stopped once, to ask someone who looked important-ish where Ollie Reeder was, describing the walking scrotum when they didn’t recognise the name immediately, then followed the directions up to the office he’d apparently seized from Malcolm.

 

In there was a woman, Jamie didn’t recall her name and didn’t really give a monkey’s left bollock, talking to a anxious Oliver Reeder, who had his back to the door and was babbling on about the suspicious phone call he’d received. The woman touched his arm, not noticing the newcomer to the room.

 

“Ollie, that’s not possible. The Caledonian Mafia’s just something we use to scare junior ministers. They don’t _really-”_ she cut off, noticing Jamie. “Oh fuck.”

Ollie turned around and his face went several shades whiter than a Klu Klux Klan pillowcase. A slow, lazy smile crept up Jamie’s face.

 

“Y-you. It’s...it’s you. Jesus _fucking Christ Jamie!”_

 

“Got it in one. Listen, love, I need to have a word with Mr Reeder here. Personal matters.”

 

The woman left, closing the door behind her in a state of terror. And Jamie grinned.

 

“Are you, are you from the Mafia?”

 

“I haven’t the faintest idea what you’re talking about. The Caledonian Mafia?” Jamie smiled innocently. “Listen, what you did to Malcolm was wrong. None of us are divided about that. It’s how we’re going to kill you that’s the problem. You pull anything like this again, I’ll **fucking crucify you on a fucking industrial fan** -”

 

_End._

  


 

 

 

**Author's Note:**

> The reference to 'There Will Be Blood' comes from a deleted scene from In the Loop, which I'm taking as canon for this fic.  
> Thinking up Jamie's contact names was the most fun I've had in a long while.


End file.
